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<title>𝟷𝟿𝟿𝟺 ~ {𝚝.𝚛𝚒𝚍𝚍𝚕𝚎} by tomriddlesleft_toe (a_flower_without_sunshine)</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28828788">𝟷𝟿𝟿𝟺 ~ {𝚝.𝚛𝚒𝚍𝚍𝚕𝚎}</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_flower_without_sunshine/pseuds/tomriddlesleft_toe'>tomriddlesleft_toe (a_flower_without_sunshine)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Muggle, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, America, Angst, Angst and Romance, Angst and Tragedy, Childhood Trauma, F/M, Gen, High School, Hurt No Comfort, Light Smut, Masochism, Muggles, Original Female Character - Freeform, POV Original Female Character, School Shootings, Teenage Tom Riddle, Tom Riddle - Freeform, Tom Riddle's Diary, Trauma, more angst than romace really but, more like tom riddle hit list but same difference i guess, obviously, pumped up kicks</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 12:48:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,743</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28828788</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_flower_without_sunshine/pseuds/tomriddlesleft_toe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>𝙸𝚗 𝚠𝚑𝚒𝚌𝚑 𝚃𝚘𝚖 𝚁𝚒𝚍𝚍𝚕𝚎 𝚒𝚜 𝚊 𝚜𝚌𝚑𝚘𝚘𝚕 𝚜𝚑𝚘𝚘𝚝𝚎𝚛</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Tom Riddle/Original Female Character(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Ｆｏｒｇｉｖｅｎｅｓｓ</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>𝘌𝘱𝘪𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘱𝘩</p><p>"𝐀𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐨𝐟 𝐆𝐨𝐝, 𝐰𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐚𝐬𝐤:</p><p> </p><p>𝐰𝐡𝐲 𝐝𝐢𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬?  </p><p> </p><p>/𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐛𝐞 𝐚𝐧 𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐨:</p><p> </p><p>𝐰𝐡𝐲 𝐝𝐢𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬?" </p><p> </p><p>- 𝐈𝐥𝐲𝐚 𝐊𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐤𝐲</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><b>I was born </b>in the 70's. It was a home birth, in a house with pink wallpaper and broken mirrors. </p><p>When my mother, tired and bloodied, held me for the first time in her arms, she begged to be forgiven.</p><p>She would not hold me any longer, (I don't think she could ever bring herself to hold me again, it was too close to loving) and in the years since then, in the years leading up to her death, the only proof of her presence in my life were in the purple bruises at the corners of my mouth. </p><p>I met you on the same day she finally got the courage to leave me. As I sat there, sobbing between my knees on the snow covered lawn of a house whose mirrors I have never known to be whole, you appeared, and asked me why I was crying. </p><p>Snow was falling that day. It was maybe 30 degrees out, and your face was tucked into a plaid green scarf. Your nose was red and you sniffed instinctively, but didn't dare bring a gloved hand to wipe away the itch. Little flakes of snow fell into your dark curls. A few fell into your lashes and you blinked them away, almost gracefully.</p><p>I looked from you, to the house, to the police cars and then to the sunken faces of the officers and a regretful coroner. Looking back at you, your expression was apathetic and bored. You'd asked why I was crying in the same way you'd kindly scold a child for kicking the seat in the theater. </p><p>You were the first person to ever look me in the eyes and meet my gaze without pity or resentment. Deep, dark brown eyes. No matter how hard I looked, I couldn't make out your pupils, and wondered, the corners of my mouth twitching upward into something like an entertained smile, if you even had any. </p><p>Plaid green scarf. Snowflakes in curls and lashes. Apathy and deep, dark eyes. Even standing in a blanket of white snow, you blended into the silence of the landscape, like a faded statue abandoned by the people who'd sculpted it thousands of years ago. </p><p>I was careful not to blink, afraid that if I closed my eyes for just a second, you would no longer be a sculpture- just another boy in the snow, asking me if I was ok, not because he actually cared, but because it was the polite thing to do. </p><p>I asked if you were an angel. You laughed, and said you could be, if I wanted you to. I told you I wanted to be destroyed, completely and mercilessly. </p><p>You grinned with dimples that sunk deep into your cheeks. I knew from that first moment I saw you that you would be the last thing to ever happen to me, Tom.  </p><p>It certainly felt like forgiveness.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Ｄｉｓｐｌａｙ</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><b>At school, </b>everyone fell quiet when I entered the room. When I passed in the halls, they would stop and turn their heads, following me until I was too far away to continue to be of interest. </p>
<p>My teachers gave me less work, and looked at me worriedly when I still did the absolute most on it and asked for extra credit. </p>
<p>The school counselor, with the unblotted red lipstick and green salad stuck in her teeth, looked at me as though I was on display at the zoo, and talked to me through the bars. </p>
<p>Her voice was just as stale and plastic as before, but now it shook with a tingle of fear. If I really did it, and followed in my mother's steps, it would leave a lovely little blood-stained smudge on her record. </p>
<p>The idea was tempting.</p>
<p>None of this truly bothered me, though, until the funeral. They all showed up- the classmates who used to snicker at my long sleeves and plump thighs, the teachers who stuck up their noses at me for not getting enough work done at home, the counselor who had never taken me seriously before. </p>
<p>They were all at the funeral that should've been poorly attended, and carelessly pulled together. They all cried for a woman who spent more time in the night with men who smelled of whiskey and chainsmoke than with her child, who picked at the holes in the hallway walls and wondered what picture frame her mother would cover them with. </p>
<p>Sitting in that congregation, watching the sun shine through the stained glass and swaying to the chime of the organ like a christmas carol, they all looked at me like I was shattering to pieces, looked at me like they hadn't mocked me just days ago for the cracks splitting through my body. </p>
<p>The priest read a verse from the bible, a book of hope and fairytales that had belonged nowhere in our house of pink wallpaper and broken mirrors, and when he was done, he said the Lord looked kindly over my mother and brought her peace.</p>
<p>Everyone told me she was in a better place. They told me she was resting well. </p>
<p>When they looked to me for an answer, I stared them dead in the eyes, smiled, and said that if the Lord was as kind and gracious as everyone made him out to be, he would do me a favor and leave my mother at the gates of heaven, where she would always be looking in but never getting farther than her arms could reach through the bars. </p>
<p>They looked horrified, and I reassured them. In a matter of time, I would be reaching with her.</p>
<p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Ｏｄｄｉｔｙ</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><b>On some Wednesday</b> after the funeral, I caught you smoking under the bleachers. </p><p>I remember it was Wednesday because I had failed another weekly chemistry quiz. I remember you were smoking because you always are, and I can no longer take in a breath without being overwhelmed by your secondhand smoke in my lungs. </p><p>I saw you often in the halls and class and once on my front lawn in the snow, and noticed that in any setting you stood out by how naturally you blended in.</p><p>You were a boy of red knuckles and veiny wrists and dark shadows under your eyes. Your presence was chilling and demanding and breathtaking in a way that made you a thief; taking what was not yours and playing with it carelessly. </p><p>All your clothes and everything you owned were black or gray, with the occasional splash of green. You carried leather notebooks and wrote only in pen and extravagant cursive letters. You spoke with a formal tone, and looked people in the eye without blinking. </p><p>No matter what light you stood in, those deep, dark eyes never shone. </p><p>You should've stuck out everywhere you went, and yet. </p><p>
  <em>(Nobody sees you, Thomas)</em>
</p><p>Everyone was aware of you but no one noticed you. You were always present but never there. Like a ghost in a graveyard, you were an oddity in a place where everyone expected unusualness of you, and nothing is as overlooked as the odd expectancies.</p><p>
  <em>(Only me.)</em>
</p><p>You sat on the cold concrete under the bleachers with one leg lying straight in front and the other pulled up to your chest. The orange glow from the end of your cigarette sparked and you lifted it from your lips, tapping it gently and watching the ash fall. You knew I was there but you didn't look at me. </p><p>I sat on my knees and didn't move or speak until you did. Your expression was grumpy and, as always, apathetic. There was something reassuring in that- I would never have to worry that you would care. </p><p>I asked why you were under the bleachers- there are better places to hide if you want to smoke. You waved your hand dismissively and brought the cigarette back up to your lips. Beside you, your notebook was open, and on its pages I could make out furious scribbles and harshly crossed out lines. </p><p>I asked what you were writing and this time the edges of your mouth twitched with annoyance. Unexpectedly, you asked if I killed my mother. </p><p>
  <em>She deserved it, didn't she? She wanted it, didn't she? </em>
</p><p>I asked again what you were writing. You hummed, amusedly now. </p><p>
  <em>Answer me first. </em>
</p><p>There was a smudge of ink on the side of your hand. I looked again at your writing, and noticed its angle. You were left-handed.</p><p>I asked why you weren't at her funeral. It was pretty funny, how everyone pretended they knew her. How they pretended to care. You would've enjoyed it.</p><p>You grinned widely, exposing rows of unnaturally perfect white teeth, and spun the cigarette between your fingers. </p><p>
  <em>You know what's funny?</em>
</p><p>I arched a brow.</p><p>
  <em>I killed my parents, too.</em>
</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Ｈｏｍｅ</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The thought chilled my bones and froze me over with shame, but I didn't care. I picked at my skin, watching myself flake and unravel.</p><p>My aunt, whom I had no idea existed until yesterday, looked at me with pursed lips and disdain. Purple lipstick. Chewed nails.</p><p>She smelled like cats and had the pretentious confidence of a middle school math teacher.</p><p>The skin broke and flecks of red pecked through the surface.</p><p>"I can see why my mother never said anything about you," I said as I wiped away the blood on my jeans.</p><p>Her eyebrows sprung up and she huffed angrily, excited and repulsed by the confrontation.</p><p>"Your mother was <em>filth</em>. She was <em>repulsive </em>and <em>vile</em>. I'm disgraced to think that my good name be souled on her lips."</p><p>"Such prose," I murmured absently, now distracting myself with a loose thread in my jacket. "And the resemblance is uncanny, by the way,"</p><p>"<em>The resemblance?! Between me and that-"</em></p><p>"Yup," I lifted my sleeve and smelled the fabric of the faded pink jacket. It still smelled like my mother's cigarettes. "You and...<em>that</em>,"</p><p>We didn't speak whilst she signed all the forms and sat through the lengthy talks with the lawyers and child services, though she did throw an upturned nose and foul eye at me whenever possible.</p><p>I could feel in my gut that this would become a trend when we were public, and it wouldn't carry over so harmlessly into the privacy of her home.</p><p>Her home, which by law she had to now share with me, did not have pink wallpaper or broken mirrors, but withheld the same doleful gloom.</p><p>Somewhere, I got the sudden courage to ask why she hadn't attended my mother's funeral.</p><p>It had been such a long time since I'd seen that unique mix of horror, guilt, and hatred contort someone's face, and I would be lying if I said it didn't fill me with a glorifying satisfaction.</p><p>As she struck me, again and again until my skin was colored like a canvas, my mind drifted to the high ceilings above me and I was reminded of the first time we met, before the snow, back in that bleak apartment building with walls that seemed to stretch higher than we could see.</p><p>Yes, I remember it well, Tom. It was the only time you had seemed small. </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Ｂｕｒｎｓ</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><b>We always refer</b> to our first meeting being that day in the snow, when I was on my knees and you were angel seeing me for the tragedy I am- it's just more romantic that way. It just puts on a perfect little bow, and makes the unraveling more glamorous to watch.</p><p>But in truth, when we first met it was hot, and the days were long, stretching longer with the anticipation of the coming summer break. I noticed you then, for the first time.</p><p>I noticed how you didn't slack off in the last weeks of the school year or eagerly make summer plans or cross off the days with the rest of our peers.</p><p>You were just as you had been all year: charming and unnoticed. There and never there. A statue in snow. A ghost in a graveyard.</p><p>All around there was yellow and green and laughter and excitement, yet your colors remained muted, your tone stoic and stagnant.</p><p>I wondered, for the first time, what went through your mind, what kind of safety net you hand tangled yourself in, and if it looked anything like mine.</p><p>And though you never looked at me, never for more than a passing glance or subtle interaction, I know you noticed it in me, too.</p><p>I had spent my school year constructing a palace to secure myself in as my body endured long summer hours in a house of pink wallpaper and broken mirrors, and you noticed how just like you, when I should burst with summer and color, I was instead frozen in murky browns and stoic grays.</p><p>You weren't there on the last day of school, and since you hadn't been there to receive your summer reading book, our teacher pulled me aside and asked me to deliver it to you. Apparently, I lived closest to you.</p><p>Your apartment building would've been an off smudge in an oil painting, one too blurred in the back to be noticed by the painter until a frustratingly later time. Its brick walls might've been red, but their color was so drained I couldn't surely be convinced it was any color at all. The lobby was carpeted, and looked as though it would have scratched my feet if I was barefoot. There was no elevator. The stairs were bleak and seemingly led to nowhere. The halls were eerily quiet, all the peepholes colored in black, all the numbers hanging to the sides of doors were slanted, rusted, or lying fallen on the floor, becoming overgrown by carpet.</p><p>I rapped on your door, and the sound echoed in my bones and through the halls. All eyes were on me. In front of that door, I was completely isolated.</p><p>When you opened the door, you didn't react. You looked through me, brows roughly furrowed.</p><p>I never noticed that crease between them before, a thin line in the center of your face, like a sliver of a scar.</p><p>I also never noticed before how you stood so firm, but your knees gave the slightest sensation of a tremble.</p><p>You held out your hand, palm downturned, where I couldn't see it. You didn't say anything, just scowled deeper.</p><p>Your eyes met mine unwaveringly, without pity or resentment, and I held my breath, savoring the feeling. </p><p>My jaw unclenched and my body untensed and I looked into your eyes and drowned in the feeling of being seen. How wonderful it is, to feel seen. If it could intoxicate me, I would be a drunk, but only on you. </p><p>Just you. </p><p>You blinked, perhaps confused by the sudden drop of my guard, and chewed on the inside of your cheek impatiently. Again, you motioned toward your open, downturned palm.</p><p>
  <em>The book.</em>
</p><p>I had never heard your voice before.</p><p>Oh, what a wonderful voice.</p><p>It made me cold.</p><p>I extended the book and when you reached for it, your fingers grasping the surface of its spine and beginning to pull it into your hidden palms, I reached out and took my hand in yours.</p><p>The book fell between our fingers and before you could jerk back, I turned over your hand and looked into the center of the palm, the fresh indentation of the end of a cigarette seared into the center.</p><p>For a still moment we just looked at the burn, at that little red circle still rimmed with black and blood.</p><p>Then, after awhile, I told you your hands were cold, and I pulled down the head of my shirt, letting you see across my shoulders and collarbone.</p><p>Understanding crossed your face then, and I realized that I'd never seen that expression before in another person.</p><p>Still looking in your eyes, I think you came to the same realization as well. Perhaps the world was smaller than we thought, or at least, a little less lonely.</p><p>I asked why the ceilings in this building were so high. You told me, in that wonderful voice, that it was to remind its residents that they were at the bottom.</p><p>I suppose I could've said something cheesy then, like how there's only one way to go (up), or perhaps I could've said nothing at all.</p><p>Instead I let my lips curl up into a smile. If you can laugh with a smile and piercing eye contact, then I guess I did that. And you laughed back, with deep dimples and dark brown eyes.</p><p>But that wasn't when we met, because back then I was just a girl with cigarette burns on her shoulders and you were a boy in a house that towered over you.</p><p>No, our first meeting was that day in snow, because I had fully become a picturesque tragedy and everyone looked away. Everyone but you.</p><p>Always you. </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Ｓａｆｅ</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I found you in the library.</p>
<p>You were sitting alone, as you always were, in the far corner to the library where the shadows stretched farthest and it was hardest for the light to reach. A few books were open around you, papers tossed to the side, work you'd completed with ease.</p>
<p>You were scribbling again in that notebook, your hand shaking violently as it wrote. The pen scathed the pages in ink. You paused only when the ink ran dry and you had to refill it. I wondered why, in this day and age, you chose to use fountain pens.</p>
<p>I didn't sit, instead lingered at the edge of the desk, where there was more light. You knew I was there but you didn't look up. This was permission, so I sat.</p>
<p>For the first few days we didn't talk at all. You would scribble furiously and scathe the pages and stop to refill, and I would wonder what you were writing. I would sit, lay my head in my arms, think quietly of nothing at all, and you would wonder why anyone would sit with you in a dark corner where the light scarcely could reach.</p>
<p>Secluded back there, the draft was cold and the shadows were long and the light flickered like street lamps in unfortunate settings, but because of this no one came near the corner.</p>
<p>We were alone in our own world where shadows stretched and embraced us while the light looked on. Here, we were safe from their eyes. We were safe with each other.</p>
<p>As you scribbled away with your angry hands I watched, with fascination, your red knuckles and veiny wrists and dark shadows under your eyes.</p>
<p>I thought about your house with its towering walls and its peepholes colored in black. I thought about my old house, with its pink wallpapers and broken mirrors. I thought about my aunt's house, where she was not as restrained as she was in public.</p>
<p>Quietly, suddenly, barely at all, I asked you if your parents deserved it when you killed them.</p>
<p>Deep dimples and dark curls. That wonderful voice that made me cold.</p>
<p>
  <em>Yes. And they knew it, too.</em>
</p>
<p>Quiet again for a long time. My mind wandered and drifted. I imagined my mother at the gates of heaven, and then in the night with those men, and then in the morning when she cried over breakfast, and then when I was born and she begged for forgiveness.</p>
<p>I sniffed the sleeve of my pink jacket. My aunt had washed it, even though I'd told her it was no use.</p>
<p>The scent of those cigarettes were never going away. They were forever in my clothes and on my skin; yet it was your smoke that caught in my lungs.</p>
<p>I watched as my hand wandered over and gently wrapped itself around yours, halting the scribbling and overturning your hand to reveal its palm.</p>
<p>A little circle, fainter in color than the rest of your skin, scarred and tender, pink and brimmed with anger.</p>
<p>It wasn't as prominent as when I had first seen it, but it was undoubtedly still there, for all the world to see. Yet no one did.</p>
<p>No one sees you Thomas. Only me.</p>
<p>Just me.</p>
<p>I ran my finger along its edges. My touch was gentle. Your hands were cold. I murmured quietly, lesser than a whisper.</p>
<p>
  <em>You were right, you know. And you were wrong.</em>
</p>
<p>Your fingers, cold and strong, started to wrap themselves around mine. I continued.</p>
<p>
  <em>I didn't kill my mother,</em>
</p>
<p>Your fingers were squeezing mine. Hard. I didn't mind.</p>
<p>
  <em>but she did deserve it. And she would have wanted it.</em>
</p>
<p>Maybe in better light I would know for sure, but my fingers might have been turning purple. You leaned in close to me. Your breath was on my cheek. Your voice a low grumble.</p>
<p>
  <em>Say it.</em>
</p>
<p>I shivered.</p>
<p>
  <em>Say what?</em>
</p>
<p>Your lips brushed my ear. I could feel the warmth of your body in close proximity with mine.</p>
<p>
  <em>You know what.</em>
</p>
<p>You smelled like black cherry and mahogany. And of course, faint tobacco. I allowed myself to breathe it in.</p>
<p>
  <em>I wish I had.</em>
</p>
<p>I could feel you smile against my ear. My fingers were definitely purple now. Your fingers, around mine, trembled with excitement. Your voice was sharp and raspy now in my ear.</p>
<p>
  <em>You wish you had what?</em>
</p>
<p>I trembled slightly, at the words rolling around on my tongue, tucked behind my lips where they weren't real.</p>
<p>I considered for a moment leaning back, leaving, laughing, anything to maneuver myself out of this situation. I knew I could. I knew you would let me.</p>
<p>But I also knew I would return to you eventually, and again you'd pull on my loose threads in the hopes of watching me unravel.</p>
<p>I had told you to do this to me after all, why should I fight it? I was already begging for it.</p>
<p>Still, the words trembled as they slipped off my tongue, and were so breathy and light I could barely hear them.</p>
<p>You heard though, and I did too. The truth hung in the air between us and intertwined our poor fates together.</p>
<p>
  <em>I wish I'd killed my mother.</em>
</p>
<p>You backed off then, clicked your tongue and looked at me, eyes bright with satisfaction.</p>
<p>But you'd tipped me over and, unable to stop myself, I began spilling out. I don't know where the words had come from but they came too assuredly and left me with too much relief for them not to be true.</p>
<p><em>I </em><em>thought about it all the time. I</em> <em>had so many chances. She was weak and awful and pathetic. I had </em>so many <em>chances, but I never took them. I kept telling myself I was better than that.</em></p>
<p>Your eyes watched me with interest. Your colors brightened, but unsettlingly, and not by very much.</p>
<p>
  <em>Are you? Better than that, I mean.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I want to be.</em>
</p>
<p>I would have weeped then, if this had not been what I'd asked for. You spun the pen carelessly between your fingers.</p>
<p>
  <em>But you're not. You're just like me.</em>
</p>
<p>A window behind the bookshelves to the far side of the library displayed the setting sun. The sunset was bright orange, and rapidly sinking, as if the world was setting on fire and we were sitting here, safe from it all, where it could not reach us.</p>
<p>The world was aflame and we were cold. Tell me Thomas, what does that make us? Safe, or desolated?</p>
<p>You pulled out a box of cigarettes from your pocket. I took one and brought it to my mouth as you held up a light, sparking the cigarette as it sat between my lips.</p>
<p>This was the first time I ever smoked, and the nicotine tasted the same way it smelled on my jacket and felt on my skin.</p>
<p>Like fire that never ignited and never kept us warm, just sparked in the dark; giving us glimpses of God while we slowly decayed.</p>
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<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Ｇｈｏｓｔ</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><b>I haven't really</b> thought much about my mother since she died.</p><p>It's not so much that I'm not used to her being gone yet, or that I keep forgetting she's dead. It's that, even while she was alive, I often forgot she even existed at all, and now that she's dead, I'm not exactly sure she really did.</p><p>She was like you, Tom. Something of a ghost.</p><p>She always left the TV on, but was never watching it. She was always washing dishes we never ate on. She was always there in the house, looming over me, watching me from door frames and the corners of rooms that felt bigger than they were. If she were fake, perhaps she might have come a little closer to me. If she were real, perhaps she might have wanted to.</p><p>One Mother's Day back in elementary, I hadn't gotten her anything. There was no card, no scrawled, colorful drawing, no flowers, not even a hug. It was a day as any other, and the silence that fell between us that May was as blank and numbing as it always was.</p><p>Come July, I burst into tears on the torn up carpet in our living room. It's hot and I'm hungry and I'm angry that my mother didn't care about Mother's day because I did and I'd wanted her to yell at me for being ungrateful and I'd wanted her to cry and I'd wanted one of us to say anything at all but instead there was just static between us and I wished she cared that it made my ears bleed. I wish she cared that I was hurting. I wish she would even pretend to.</p><p>I stop coming to see you in the library because you always offer me a cigarette and I don't like to smoke. But when it's you, I can't say no. You're addicting, and I've never been attached to anything before. It scares me.</p><p>I sit next to you in class. I ask you for answers, and you put your hand on my thigh. I ask you again, and you caress me slowly under the table. It's strange to be touched so gently. It makes me starved.</p><p>When we aren't sitting together, you watch me from the corners of the room. Your eyes are brown like my mother's. The room feels smaller.</p><p>It's after school, we both loitered in the girls bathroom, not having anywhere better to be. You scribbled in your book. I tried to peek over to see what you were writing, but you slammed the book shut and glared up at me.</p><p>I turned and read the graffiti inside the stalls.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>FUCK!!!</em>
</p><p>
  <em>This school blows as bad as Jenna</em>
</p><p>
  <em>K̶ +̶ L̶ f̶o̶r̶e̶v̶e̶r̶!̶!̶!̶ &lt;̶3̶</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I wish I was dead</em>
</p><p>
  
  <em>I̶ </em>
  <em>w̶a̶n̶t̶ t̶o̶ f̶u̶c̶k̶ C̶o̶u̶r̶t̶n̶e̶y̶ L̶o̶v̶e̶</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Fuck me instead</em>
</p><p>
  <em>School Sucks xoxox</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Olivia Williams wrote this and </em>
  <span class="u">
    <em>doesn't give a fuck.</em>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <em>Eleanor Hawkes is a </em>
  <span class="u">
    <em>SLUT!</em>
  </span><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>I pull out a blue sharpie from my bag.</p><p> 

</p>
<p>
  <em>Someday you will stop haunting me.</em>
</p><p> 

</p>
<p>The handwriting is tentative and assured. It is there.</p><p>I stared at my letters for a really long time, until they blurred together into meaningless lines and shapes and blue might as well have been red and yes might as well have been no and I couldn't tell anymore if I was sitting or standing or floating and I wondered as I existed (or perhaps did not) if ghostliness was inherited or learned because for something that's so unfamiliar to experience every time, it certainly feels all too natural.</p><p>I scribbled out what I wrote and drew a caricature of the counselor swallowing a couple of dicks instead.</p><p>That night, as I lay in my bed and stared up my ceiling, I etched into my memory my mother's face, the shape of her eyes and cheeks, the creases around her mouth whenever she tried to smile, her hair that was graceful but never framed her features quite right.</p><p>Every time I got close, my stomach churned and her face fell and froze in my memory, reverting back to cold skin, foam around the lips, wide open eyes that finally met mine but had long since stopped seeing.</p><p>It was the last time I'd see her face. It was the first time I realized how beautiful she was. I regretted not telling her sooner.</p><p>Mother's Day rolls around again, except this time I don't really have to worry about it. </p><p> </p>
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